The Braided Boy
by kayura sanada
Summary: Follow-through to Night Eyes. Heero remembers a boy from his past, one with a braid that seemed to mock him.


Disclaimer: Shocker, I know, but the G-boys and their world are not mine.

Summary: A short, random follow-through for Night Eyes.

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The Braided Boy

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Heero had forgotten about him.

No, that wasn't quite true. He'd _chosen_ to forget about him. Before J's retraining, he had met a boy who hadn't been intimidated by him. The boy had lifted his face at the hard threats he'd made and shoved them straight back in his face. He remembered waking up in an unknown location, walls pressed in on him when before he'd been on the streets, running, escaping pursuit as Odin took the officers in another direction despite Heero saying he would be fine. He remembered how dark it had been, yet how light; the colony he'd been on – L2 – had been in a poor state.

He'd crushed a wrist in his grip and stared out into the dark, up into the face of someone his own age. He'd been ready to scare the kid off, like all kids scared when they were near him, but this one didn't. This one got smart with him, glared at him, flipped his braid in Heero's face as if mocking him.

He'd never forgotten the way that tail had flounced as the kid had left the room. He'd been so stunned he'd failed to escape, and the boy had returned and – and offered him food.

And then he'd met someone he hadn't known on a battlefield, and he'd let that person go because he had a braid just like the boy's, and he couldn't make himself get rid of him. That weakness had given him the blueprints he'd needed. Perhaps braids on boys were a symbol of luck for him.

There was no room for emotions in a mission. No room for a person's feelings. J had drilled that in him when he'd failed to protect the little girl. But still, he'd wanted to protect the memory of that ridiculous boy. And so he'd locked it away, safely away where no one could touch it. And so he'd forgotten.

Yet when he saw the monitor in his 'hospital room' flicker on, saw that fool in the hat with his finger over his lips and that smirk on his face, something shuddered in his brain. He turned away, tried to remember. The man was wearing a cap, hiding his face – most likely to assist his anonymity as he broke into the Alliance building. It helped obscure him. But Heero was positive there was something about the boy that he remembered. What was it?

He pondered it as the hospital fell into chaos, then more closely as the boy came up to him and started looking foolishly for something to cut his restraints with. The idiot had actually entered the facility without something to remove restraints. Inconceivable.

Yet he had to admit that without the boy's distractions, he would never have gotten even as far as ripping them off. He did so as he looked into those odd eyes – so strangely blue as to appear purple, which he was certain he would remember if he'd seen it before – and the pale, pale skin that showed the boy usually moved at night. So why come during the day?

Then the boy gave him a parachute and hurried Heero forward, toward a wall, and pulled out a small grenade, and Heero got a flash of brown. A tail? A braid. A braid? On a guy? It sent alarm bells off in his mind. He covered his face as smoke and plaster and detritus flew through the air. The boy was already jumping, that braid of his flying through the air as he pulled out his hoverstick and left Heero to jump, to complete the second part of his mission and cover the tracks left by allowing his enemy to see his face.

It was an odd last thing to see. The braid was like a tail, almost as if it had a mind of its own. It almost seemed to mock him.

And that was an odd last thought to have.

He heard the man screaming above him. He blanked out the words. The voice almost sounded familiar, even though he knew he'd never heard it before. Something about the texture, the tone – yes, the accent. He'd heard someone with that accent before.

_The kid actually snorted at him, as if his battle stance was a joke. He turned away, toward the door, turned his back on him in the stupidest move he had ever seen – and then the boy flicked his braid, right in front of his face, and he realized that the boy was insulting him. _Insulting _him, as if the boy couldn't be bothered to take his threat seriously. As if, to him, it wasn't a threat at all._

_Over twenty people dead at his hand, and this boy couldn't care less._

Heero's eyes snapped open. _The braid!_ It was the same. He was sure of it. How many men had brown, braided hair down to their ass? It was _him!_ The boy who wasn't afraid of him!

He pulled the string of the parachute. Mission be damned. He wanted to speak with that boy. He wanted to know why he wasn't afraid. Who he was. Where he came from.

Until he understood the person who looked at him with disdain instead of distrust, he couldn't afford to die.


End file.
